It's hard to know where to begin with Driven. As a lover of films and motor sport this manages to insult me on two levels at the same time. Not only is it an abysmal film, which drags out the sorts of cliché's that they didn't think would fly in 'Knight Rider'. The washed up older driver, the young stud, the bitter crippled ex-driver. PLEASE! If not being a script most four years old might reject isn't enough, its also taken Indy car racing and decided its a 'backdrop' and ignores virtual all technical and practical aspects of it for the sake of convenience. So what you have here is a racing film, for anyone who has never watched racing and an action film for people who think very poor CGI slow motion crashes are cool. Anyone who wants to see acting as such wasn't even considered. It was supposedly originally written as an F1 racing story, presumably once F1 had seen the script they chose not to be associated with this moronic enterprise. As far as the cast is concerned, it has to be said that Stallone has made some exceptionally bad choices in recent years regarding movies, and this is yet another. Burt Reynolds always looks to me like his about to crack up - because no on in their right mind would pay anyone to give such performances. The younger drivers all seemed to have come from the 90211 clone farm where they are given blank expressions and stupid hair styles. Bettering them all is Estella Warren, who gives the sort of line delivery which makes the puppet cast of Thunderbirds seem like they were members of the Royal Shakespeare! Is their anything good about Driven? Yes, it convinced me that I won't watch another Stallone movie unless it has five Oscars beforehand.
Reviews
2 Reviews
Battlefield Earth
(2000)
It could have been worse, just not sure how...
30 July 2002
It's true to say that you must watch all of this film, just to be amazed by how utterly awful it really is...It's so bad, its hard to know where to start. Oh yes, John Travolta! He plays a mad greedy alien in such a ham way that it makes an Austin Power's movie look like a Royal Shakespeare Company production. His line delivery is so weird, and if it wasn't for the poor makeup and costume he's been given you would be drawn to conclude it was evidence of substance abuse. Travolta's antics unfortunately seem to have infected the rest of the cast who act in a manner that would have been rejected if given by the puppets from Sesame Street. If it isn't Forest Whitaker laughing for no apparent reason all the time, it's Barry Pepper trying to make up for his lack of dialogue through a series of grimaces. It's usually at this point that a reviewer will say, 'ah yes but...' and offer up either the story, action or effects as solace. Sadly none of these are executed any better, and in some respect much less so. The plot (and I assume the book makes more sense, please) has such big plot holes in it you could drive a Death Star through them. For example, the aliens take over earth and set about plundering it, a thousand years later they have still to notice a large building called 'Fort Knox' which is full of gold. And when I hero's want to fight back they - amazingly - come across a squadron of flyable Harrier jump jets. That they learn to fly in simulators in a few days. Moronic isn't the word. Many Sci-Fi film's are endearing enough that you can allow them some artistic license, no film is ever going to get as much as Battlefield Earth needs, ever. So in summary:- bad acting of a diabolical script of ridiculous story presented in a banal way with negligible style.
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